Inevitable Outcome
by Izzu
Summary: As an older brother and a guardian, Takatora tried his best to protect his brother. But not everything you do would end out as you hoped it could be.


I wanted to write something... and another part of me feel that Takatora should have his own encounter with Eve.

[Edit] Changing Eve's lines a bit cos of future spoilers

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Inevitable Outcome

By Izzu

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_"Beware, for you are about to choose a path of no return…"_

He was taken aback, at the appearance of the strange girl. The test area was supposed to be sealed, no outsiders should've been able to enter… let alone _saunter_ around casually. And Ryoma did not inform him that the side effects of testing the new driver would include _hallucinations_…

"Who are you?" Takatora asked warily. The girl approached him slowly.

_ "Once you've chosen, there would be no turning back. _Your actions now, will affect so many lives around you."__

Takatora frowned. From the moment he found out about Helheim forest and started this project with Ryoma and the others, he knew exactly what sort of burden he would carry. The burden of responsibility that would involve everyone living in his city. He didn't need some mysterious girl to tell him what he already knew...

He thought of the things he discovered during the exploration of Helheim forest, as well as the things Ryoma uncovered during his research. The unknown entity out there as well the thought of such thing to wake up and reach out to his city. Even if it was inevitable for the city and its people to be consumed by the forest, he would still fight to prevent it from happening. In order to protect the things important...

"You... who the heck are you?"

The girl still refused to answer.

_"You can still turn back and change your fate. It doesn't have to happen this way. There should be another way for you to protect what's important to you." _ She paused for a moment, averting her eyes from him. _"...you don't need to be the only one suffering."_

The girl stared back at him again; now looking very sad, as if trying to beg him to change his mind. It made Takatora uncomfortable. Her stares seemed to imply she knew _something_ that he didn't. He shook his head and hissed at her. "Even if you say it like that, I won't sit down and do nothing. Even if that means I have to sacrifice myself."

The girl smiled weakly as Takatora turned away from her.

_ "Is there... nothing else that I can do?"_

Takatora turned around hastily towards her, but the girl was _nowhere_ to be seen. The simulation suddenly went off as Takatora returned to the white room where all of their testing simulations were done. As he stared blankly at the blank wall, he thought he heard a faint voice calling to him...

"Takatora! Takatora! Are you all right?"

He blinked, before taking note of the door located not far from him. A second later, the door opened as a young man ran out towards him. The man started fumbling around him as the special armour came off.

Takatora exhaled as he finally turned to face his friend. He frowned.

"Why are you so frantic... Ryoma? At least _this_ time the driver worked properly," he asked as _Professor _Sengoku Ryoma glanced up to him, looking annoyed.

"Frantic? You went unresponsive as soon as you initialized the driver! I thought something went wrong when... are you fine now? The armour _finally _materialized nicely the way I intended but when you didn't give any response after that made me worry if the mechanized fruit had adverse affect on you—"

Takatora waved his hand away before stopping himself, "Wait... Ryoma. Earlier... did you see any other peculiar thing right after I tried the driver?" he asked, as Ryoma shook his head.

"Hmmm? Was there anything else to note? Have you seen anything odd after that big melon dropped onto your head?"

Takatora gave Ryoma a wry look. As if he could get concussions over digitized giant fruits! Takatora frowned again.

He couldn't have imagined seeing that girl earlier, could he? He felt nothing out of ordinary after activating the driver. Nor did he remember having taken anything that could be remotely suspicious! But for some reason, he couldn't just ignore the things that girl said to him. As the girl seemed to have tried to _foreshadow_ something to him...

Shaking his head, Takatora walked out of the simulation room... leaving Ryoma by himself as he fussed over Takatora's new Sengoku driver...

xxx

Takatora placed the folder with Mitsuzane's information on his desk as he sighed dejectedly.

He had no right to blame Sid fully over what happened. For all the insolence Sid let on, the man did try to hint him about this. If only he bothered to check on the reports much earlier, then he would've been able to find out about Mitsuzane a lot sooner. It was his fault as well, he was too confident about himself that he could raise Mitsuzane well while keeping the secrets of Helheim away from the boy. He never thought the way he raised Mitsuzane might be a bit too rigid to the point that his brother would join those beat rider kids that he deemed to be worthless.

No, not _worthless_... but so blissfully unaware of the harsh realities of life. Those kids may be able to live so carelessly, dancing on the streets... but such privilege was not something he could have. Or do. Not when he had to try stopping an alien forest from trying to take over his city as its own…

He went into his brother's room to check on his computer to see if Mitsuzane took anything from his office. Much to his disappointment, he found that Mitsuzane did took something. He recognized those file anywhere.

Takatora opened the file from the first report on the Sengoku driver test run. There were several other reports as well, mostly of Ryoma showing off his findings. He snorted bitterly. To think Mitsuzane had been able to get _this much_ in such a short time.

He felt as if he had just fallen into a deep cavern. He tried so hard to protect his important brother yet—was he being too overconfident that he could control _another Kureshima_ to conform to his personal ideal? He wanted so much to shelter Mitsuzane away from these things and only allow the child in once the danger has passed. Was he wrong in thinking he could do that _by himself_?

Sid was right. If he couldn't even manage his own brother, how could he manage anyone else; including his co-workers? He never felt so helpless as he did right now.

Suddenly he recalled that mysterious girl he thought he saw long time ago. Did that girl _knew_ that this day would come? Was that why she said all those cryptic words to him? To tell him that his past actions would be lead to this moment?

He heard the door behind him creaked open slowly. That should be Mitsuzane.

Once more, Takatora let out a long sigh...


End file.
